The Rise of the Dead
by Tolemac102
Summary: If your local Pinkberry has gone out of business, that was my fault. Sorry. If all of the buildings next to it are also decimated, that was Zia's fault. I will not apologize for her. But in my defense, I didn't start it. That was the fault of Anubis, who somehow managed to raise the dead.
1. We Discover Somebody Has Made a Mistake

**Author's Note: I got this idea after reading ****The Serpent's Shadow**** and going to eat frozen yogurt. I've tried something new with this fic that I don't think anybody else has done yet: having other people (not just Sadie and Carter) narrate. **

The Rise of the Dead

A Kane Chronicles fanfic

Chapter One: We Discover Somebody Has Made A Mistake

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Hello. Sadie here. Yes, the one who saved the world and all that. Not important, unless you picked up this audio recording to do a research project on me, in which case the first three would be more helpful. Although I am very touched that you would actually pick me for a report subject. Truthfully, I have a very exciting life.

Carter says to stuff a sock in it and get to the point. [Yes, Carter, alright, I'm getting there. Be patient.] So. In short, the world is in trouble again. And its mostly our fault. Again. But we can't take the entire blame. It's also partly Anubis' fault. Yes, the god of funerals. Carter says he had nothing to do with it, that he was an innocent bystander brutally dragged into this.

[Yes dear brother, exactly like you were an innocent bystander in the Battle of the Red Pyramid.]

He says he was busy fighting. Exactly, Carter. He was the reason the Eiffel Tower is now a little crooked. Well, more than a little crooked, but less crooked than the Leaning Tower of Pizza. Carter says it's called the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

[Thank you, dear brother, for that absolutely useless piece of information.]

Wondering what the heck I'm talking about? Let me explain. Firstly, if your local Pinkberry has gone out of business, that was my fault. Sorry. Next, if all of the buildings next to it are also decimated, that was Zia's fault. I will not apologize for her. But in my defense, I didn't start it. Lastly, the point of this recording. If I recall correctly, it all started with the ice-cream shop incident...

It was late summer, nearly autumn, so there were some leaves that crunched nicely underfoot, but not so many that you had to wade through them to get anywhere. It was hot, unusually so, and I had persuaded Carter to take everyone out for ice cream. Looking back, if I had listened to Zia and bought ice cream and brought it home, none of this would have happened. Well, it would have, but it wouldn't have happened on Amos's birthday.

We trooped through the doors of Pinkberry, which I later learned were magically protected with Divine Words inscribed in the walls around them. I looked around, still impressed by the size of the place. Maybe a twentieth of the size of the Hall of Ages, but not too bad. Along one wall was an entire self-serve bar of sugary cereals, chocolate, fresh fruit, and cookie bits. Along the other wall was those tall spinny chairs that are like four feet off the ground and usually face the front sidewalk. The third wall was the counter and a little hallway that was labeled 'Restroom', with one of those cute stick figure families on the circular blue sign below it. The fourth wall had a row of sofas and the door we had just come in. The door clanked ominously shut behind us, announcing our arrival with a tinkle of the irritatingly annoying bell on the handle. As if the counter people couldn't see us.

As soon as they oriented themselves in the room, the ankle-biters rushed straight to the DIY bar. I followed. 'Hello! Welcome to Pinkberry!' cried the staff in overly cheery voices. Let me warn you now, they were not nearly quite so happy when we finally made it to the counter. To be precise, they were mad. Not the point.

We probably held up the line for half an hour. Maybe more. My sense of time is bad at the best of times and worse when trying to keep seven toddlers from charging through a DIY bar, scattering frozen yogurt everywhere. One thing I had time to notice (in the split second that nobody dropped yogurt on their head, their foot, or any part of anybody else) was that the flavors everyone got matched their personalities.

Zia got butter pecan. Strange and kind of exotic, but so is Zia. Carter, being the boring kind of person he is, got vanilla. I got strawberry-mango-salted-caramel. Hey, a girl has to stay creative. Julian got orange sorbet, Walt got chocolate, Chloe got mint chocolate chip and Khufu got pistachio. I was doubtful that we would find any Khufu-friendly flavors here, but I guess Pinkberry has everything.

Honestly, I can't say what Khufu looked like to the mortals. Maybe he looked like a little kid in a Laker's jersey, or maybe people were used to seeing baboons in yogurt shops, because nobody looked at him funny. Not even one. Oh, except the creepy counter guy in all white with the sunglasses. More on that later.

When we got the the checkout counter, the staff, usually very bubbly, were giving us the evil eye. Mostly me. I got the feeling that they wanted to strangle me but didn't want to set a bad example for the little kindergarteners running around with absurdly sharp crayons. Ah. The thoughtful sincerity of people these days.

Carter had his wallet, of course, and as he paid, the guy behind the counter smiled cruelly. He looked eerily familiar. Normally, I am not a jittery person, as you probably know, but this guy was giving me the creeps. For starters, he wasn't giving any of us the evil eye, but instead he was smiling at us in a completely non-friendly way. And of course, with our kind of luck, the guy that looked like the evil ice cream man turned out to really be the evil ice cream man. Lovely, isn't it?

That was when Walt confessed that Anubis (him) had somehow managed to free all of the dead, dating back to the start of the world.

In a nutshell, we completely ruined Amos's birthday.

**Author's Note: Please review. Over twenty people have read this fic, but none of them have reviewed! To all you people who just read this fic, think I'm annoying, and are about to leave this page: You just spent five minutes reading this, surely you can spend a further thirty seconds reviewing it. **

**How's this: Seven of you review, and I will post the next chapter. Fair? **

**So what are you waiting for? Click that little blue button!**

-Tolemac


	2. We Get a Strong Sense of Déjà Vu

**Author's Note: Sorry this took me so long to write. But if it makes you feel better, I have half of the next chapter written. Here it is!**

The Rise of the Dead

A Kane Chronicles fanfic

Chapter Two: We Get a Strong Sense of Déjà-Vu

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Great timing, Walt. I'm sure Amos appreciated that. Anyway, back to narrating. The counter guy put my money in the register, and passed me my change. I pocketed it, starting to get really rather nervous about him. Sadie always says that I worry too much, so I put it down to nerves. Then the DIY bar exploded. I was finally right. But boy, did I wish that this one time, I wasn't.

Frozen yogurt spattered the walls, streaking them brown, pink, and gloppy orange. The sugar sprinkles burst into the air, flying around the room in a windstorm that had originated somewhere around Sadie. She says it's not her fault.

[I'm not looking doubtful, I'm being reasonable-ow! Stop kicking me in the kneecap, Sadie!]

See? She doesn't believe me. I ducked as the canned peaches whizzed across the room, smacking a portly gentleman in the head. He went down with a grunt. Khufu grunted in sympathy, fished a pistachio out from under a table, and offered it to the man. The man's face turned the same color as the pistachio.

Zia drew her wand from her bag, and pointed it at the salesman. 'Ty-et!" she yelled. Bind! The salesman ducked he spell like it was a snowball and took off his sunglasses. I held in a gasp of disbelief. It was Vladimir Menshikov.

The last time we had met him was in the Duat, when he fought as an ally of Apophis. Sadie, in giant kite form, had killed and eaten him. Now he was back. His eyes were still as bad as they had been before, if not worse. Scars littered the parts of his face that had been previously covered by his glasses. Where his eyes should have been were two empty sockets that oozed milky white pus. He had come back from the dead.

Sure, over the years, I've gotten used to hearing crazy stuff. You can tell me that my grandma is now a smelly flesh-eating vulture, and I'll only send you to the nearest mental asylum. Walt had told me not twenty seconds ago that the dead had risen, but I couldn't see anything about the ice cream man that showed he was dead. His form was solid white, not flickering like my mother's form even when she was in the Hall of Judgment, where spirits were at their strongest. My mother! If what Walt said was true, and the spirits of the dead had returned to the mortal world as humans, my mother would be among them. For now, I would have to believe him.

A whooshing sound alerted me to the whirlwinds presence, but not before I got bombarded by a full twenty pounds of rainbow sprinkles. I nearly lost my manly pride there and then, if not for the fact that a large group of suspicious people trooped in the door. The flying foods seemed to just miss them, while crashing blindly into us and the other customers.

I scowled when I recognized some of the newcomers as rebel magicians from before we defeated Apophis. Okay. Walt was telling the truth. The living dead had arrived.

A hand grabbed my shirt sleeve, and I instinctively chopped down on in. Zia swore, then yelled in my ear," Carter, follow me! Exit by bathroom! Sphinx statuette!"

I ducked a magician's spell, which glowed green for a moment before it collided with some free sample spoons, incinerating them. I breathed a prayer to the gods that it hadn't been me, in the unlikely event that it worked. I like having my head on my shoulders, you know? Just the sort of thing you get used to after a while.

We dashed towards the bathroom, herding the ankle-biters on front of us. Zia says calling them that is rude, but it's faster than naming all them. Come on, there's like twenty-seven. Fine, maybe twelve. Still a lot. We actually fit in the family bathroom, amazingly enough.

Walt picked up the statue of the sphinx and examined it. The rest of us linked hands. Walt yelled a word, and a swirling vortex of sand appeared - where else? - in the toilet bowl. We jumped in, the ankle-biters giggling their tiny innocent heads off, Sadie cackling, Walt grinning madly, Zia staring stoically ahead, and me wincing whenever I thought about what we were traveling through. (Thank you for flying with Toilet Airlines! We appear to have run out of peanuts, but if you find any, help yourself!) Ugh.

We tumbled out onto the deck, wet, sandy, and miserable. The ankle-biters hadn't gotten their frozen treat, Zia had lost her wand, Sadie had stubbed her toe coming out of the portal, and I had a splitting headache. Phillip of Macedonia sprayed us with a welcoming wave of swimming pool water. Sadie sighed, and muttered something about losing her frozen yogurt. She had gotten some bizarre combination of mud-brown, poisonous-dart-frog-orange, and a brain-colored red-purple. Honestly, I wouldn't have minded if I had lost it. Sadie must be some kind of crazy to get anything like that and actually eat it. She just remarked that I have no creative skills. Personally, I think it's from that time I forced dad to drop her on her head.

[Yes, Sadie. I have no creativity, and you have no sense of logic. Stop kicking me! It's true! So is the part about dropping you on your head. What do you mean I'm killing you-OW! I thought I said stop!]

Great. Now my knee hurt, I had rainbow sprinkles in my hair, I forgot to get Amos a birthday present, I may or may not have left both my wallet and my wand in the yogurt store (which means I had), and the dead were coming back to life.

That was when I noticed that the windows were cracked. Sadie and I exchanged a look. The last time something broke the mansion's windows, we found out that we were godlings and that the gods of Egypt were still hanging around. At least this time we already knew the dead were back. A roar of fury and maybe hunger (I don't know, can Egyptian monsters feel emotions?) sounded from within the mansion, and Walt gave me a worried look. I grinned back, certain it looked more like a painful grimace.

We stepped inside. The house was in shambles. Actually, it was in a condition so far past damaged I don't even know a word to describe it. Thoth's statue was missing it's head again, a splintered vase and a fragmented iPad lay in the corner by the kitchen door, which was now lodged in the fireplace. I looked towards the balcony. A serpapod's scaly face leered back at me, hissing.

"Here we go again," grumbled Sadie. "Why can't the bloody things just stay put!"

"That isn't how the world of magic works, my dear," stated an eerily familiar voice to our right that seemed to be coming from what used to be the broom closet under the stairs but was now the large pile of broken wood. Zia paled, Sadie's eyes widened, and I took a shaky step back. Standing in front of the splintered stairwell was Iskandar.

I sighed, not sure whether to be glad Iskandar was back or to be mad that he serpapod's had again trashed our house. One thing I was sure of? Amos was going to have one heck of a birthday party when he got back in three days. Presuming we lived that long, that is.

**Author's Note: Please review. Over forty people have read this fic, but none of them have reviewed! To all you people who just read this fic, think I'm annoying, and are about to leave this page: You just spent five minutes reading this, surely you can spend a further thirty seconds reviewing it. **

**How's this: Eight of you review, and I will post the next chapter. Fair? **

**So what are you waiting for? Click that little blue button!**

-Tolemac


	3. We Meet an Old Friend

**Author's Note: A HUGE thank you to all those wonderful people who reviewed. To those of you who didn't: shame! Sorry this is late; I was a bit busy with other things. Here it is!**

The Rise of the Dead

A Kane Chronicles fanfiction

Chapter Three: We Meet an Old Friend

_Or _I Learn that Goodbyes are Harder the Second Time Around

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Standing in front of the splintered stairwell was Iskandar. He looked younger and healthier than I remembered, and I narrowed my eyes, instantly suspicious, then horrified at my thinking. But I had been the gods' pawn once before, and it wasn't about to happen again. It looked like Iskandar, it sounded like Iskandar, but I knew the gods were skilled in the magic of deception. Carter put a hand on my shoulder, and I leaned into the steady warmth of his chest. "You okay, Zia?" he whispered in my ear. I nodded, inwardly unsure of myself, outwardly composed. At least, I hoped so.

I wanted it to be Iskandar so much it hurt, but the opposing side of me, the side that so vividly remembered being locked in a tomb for months (that he had put me in), said that I should be careful. _Keep your friends close, but keep your enemies closer. _Ra had told me that once, and had told me about how failing to do so had nearly cost him his life, and taken his job and his throne. Not a very good combination, if you ask me. I had never trusted the gods before, and I wasn't sure if I should now. But if it meant that I would get my only- no, Iskandar was no longer my only family; now I had the Kanes, and Khufu, and the initiate godlings- if it meant that I would get _part_ of my family back…. I was saved from that decision by the ominous rumble of a collapsing balcony. To be precise, the Kanes' collapsing balcony.

Everyone looked up, except Sadie, who, acting on a split-second decision, snatched the wand from Carter's startled hand, raised it, and yelled, "Hewat!" Protect! A glowing orb of semi-transparent glass-like light flowed from the tip, circling us and solidifying in time to break the fall of the serpapods. The globe bucked where it had been hit, and broke. Sadie swore under her breath, and gripped the wand harder.

Walt set a steadying hand on her shoulder. "I-you'll- you'll be fine, Sadie. Last time you weren't prepared. This time you'll be ready."

Sadie was quiet for a moment. "But last time we had Bast," she whispered, and blinked several times, while everyone around her pretended not to notice. I knew what she meant. For a few months last year, Ra had been part of my daily life, annoying and headache-inducing as he was. I had joined him for one day, known every one of his memories, his ideas, and his emotions. Then, just as suddenly, he had left. Bast, as well, had become a part of the Nome in that year, and had been central to our lives. One day she was here, the next, gone.

I shook my head. No time for this now. Maybe later. Maybe never. I suppressed the feelings, and glanced at the others out of the corner of my eye. We had grouped around the younger initiates, forming a ring; Carter, Sadie, Walt, Cleo, Julian, Jaz, Alyssa, and I. Carter reached for his wand in the Duat, remembered his sister had stolen it, cursed, and pulled out his khepesh. Sadie grinned slightly, nodding to Walt, who had summoned a pile of mummy wrappings. Cleo drew in a deep breath, preparing to yell a word of power like "Burps!", then was elbowed by Julian, and dissolved in to coughs. Jaz and Alyssa exchanged a look, then glanced at me. I shrugged and looked back at the two serpapods. We were ready. Depending on your definition of ready.

The two serpapods extracted themselves from the ruins of the second floor and advanced towards us, leering, drool dripping to the carpet from impossibly large fangs. Actually, never mind. I've met the Set animal. No teeth can be impossibly big anymore. Walt breathed a sigh of relief from to my right. "At least there're only two of them- ow! What was that for?"

Sadie glared as he rubbed his shoulder. "You jinxed us, now there'll be more." She cut off his protests. "And _yes_, I do believe in luck and superstition. I believe in the Egyptian gods hanging around for a couple of millennia, don't I?" She had a point there.

"Um, people?" muttered Jaz. "I think we have company.…" She was right. Two more serpapods filed into the room, tails lashing vigorously from side to side, blasting the doorframe to smithereens. Another two followed.

"Gods," muttered Julian. "I thought you said there were only two!" he turned to Carter, who shrugged helplessly.

"I…guess they've been busy since the last time we saw them…?"

I kicked him. So did Sadie. Cleo looked nervously at the six advancing beasts. "Now what- _Dust!_" she shrieked, her voice an octave high from fear. A serpapod that was about to eat Carter snarled as its paws fell to ashes at her feet. I finished it off with a cry of "Ha-di!" Destroy! Not my favorite spell, but it did the job as the thing exploded, splattering us with serpapod guts and sand. Behind us, the initiates squealed with excitement. You know what? I'll start calling them the ankle-biters. On reflection, it suits them.

[ Sadie just congratulated me on my sense of logic. Thanks, Sadie.]

Carter nodded at me then at Sadie, then met the eyes of everyone not being hypnotized by the death glare of a serpapod. "On my count!" he cried. "Run!"

We didn't get a chance to run anywhere. Well, we got a chance, but we were all to busy watching flaming furry serpapods. The entire left wall of the house, which supported half the second floor exploded suddenly in a- I'm not sure what to call it. Whatever you would get if you mixed pencil shavings and gasoline and mouse guts in the blender then set it on fire, magnified fifty times. And no, I'm not kidding. The serpapods were instantly consumed, being slightly closer to that wall than us, and I was suddenly grateful to whatever god that got us into this that we were ambushed as soon as we entered the building, not when we were, say, in the kitchen, which was already in flames. Oh, right, that was Anubis, also called Walt.

Then, just as suddenly as the magical- by now I had guessed the source, but was still in shock- fire appeared, it disappeared, leaving charred wood, ashes, and the smell of burnt serpapods. Sadie gagged, and behind me, I could hear someone throwing up, Cleo, perhaps. I knew we shouldn't have gone to the yogurt shop.

From the collapsed building came the groan of shifting wood, and Iskandar emerged, looking tired and worried, but more alive than I'd seen him in months. (Pun _not_ intended!) He hurried to us, skirting the Thoth statue just as the head fell off and rolled off the roof of the warehouse. I wondered where the mortals would think it was from. This one couldn't be explained off by gas line stopped in front of our group, looking at us. Then he spotted me, Carter, and Sadie. He embraced us, then drew back.

"If you say anything, _anything_ at all about how I've grown, I'll strangle you," muttered Sadie, and with that, the awkwardness was broken. Cleo jumped up, nausea gone, excited to meet the famed Chief Lector Iskandar. Iskandar smiled at her fondly, but raised a hand to stall her questions.

"Carter," he said. "You know this group better than I do. I don't want to upset whatever hierarchy you've set up-" Sadie snorted in desertion, but quickly disguised it as a snort. "-but we really should get going. I mean you. The serpapods are gone, but I don't know how long they will be held off." He fixed his gaze on Walt, who looked nervous. "You have accidentally disrupted the flow of Ma'at. I will not- how do you call it today? sugarpaint? the truth." Sadie whispered in his ear. "Ah, thank you, sugar_coat _the truth. I no longer know if humans can die. I no longer know if monsters can be dismissed to the depths of the Duat." He turned his gaze to include all of us. "You must leave, and quickly. Never stay too long in one place, the servants of Chaos can find you too easily with your magic, especially those with stronger magic." His gaze grew stern. "You must find the way to solve this, ah, problem, and bring balance to the world. I will stay and hold them off or confuse them. You must go. Now."

Sadie nodded, blinking back tears. I closed my eyes, feeling a tear escape from beneath my eyelid, trickling down onto my cheek before dripping off my chin onto the cement. A solitary splotch of sadness amidst the bleak grey. Carter embraced Iskandar again, as the older initiates led them across the lot. I stepped to Iskandar's side.

"Hello again, my little light," he whispered, embracing me.

"Goodbye was hard enough the first time," I murmured. "Now…"

"It's twice as hard," he completed gravely. "You must be brave, little light. Even in the darkest of times, there will be somebody that needs you to guide them. Farewell, little light." He pulled back, and I could see the glimmer of tears in his eyes, shining by the light of the stars. I nodded, and composed my face, setting my jaw and blinking away my tears.

"Zia!" Carter's voice from the edge of the lot.

I turned, and ran towards the group, not looking back. I nodded to Sadie's unspoken question, then shook my head at Carter's. "I'm fine." Then I added silently, _I think. _

Maybe someday I'd see Iskandar again, but for now, we were homeless, chaperone-less, moneyless, and on the streets of New York after dark. I would just have to deal with that later. If there was a later.

**Author's Note: For anybody wondering about Iskandar's nickname for Zia: He already calls Sadie 'my dear', so I think he'd have another name for Zia. Zia means 'light', and there you have it. I trust you can follow my line of thinking. :) **

**I'm so happy! This fic currently has the most reviews out of all of my fics! How about we make it to 30 before I post chapter 4? Thanks! And also, multiple reviews from the same person only count as one review.**

**-**Tolemac


	4. I Chat With the God in My Head

**Author's Note: A HUGE thank you to all those wonderful people who reviewed. To those of you who didn't: shame! Sorry this is late; I was a bit busy with other things. Plus, I wasn't quite sure how to put the ideas in this on paper. But here it is! Enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: As mentioned before, I have finally realized my lack of disclaimers, so here's one: I don't own the characters in the Kane Chronicles, I don't own the Egyptian gods, but I do own Caninese, I think. **

The Rise of the Dead

A Kane Chronicles fanfiction

Chapter Four: I Chat With the God in My Head

_Or_ I Learn Caninese

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Look, this wasn't really my fault. Fine, it was. But mostly it was Anubis'. And if Khufu hadn't spilled his tomato juice, then we wouldn't be in this mess. But he did. And we are.

For me, it started a few days before what Sadie refers to as the 'Ice Cream Shop Incident' in polite company and 'The Start of Armageddon' to everybody else. I'm still not quite sure if she was joking. I was sitting in my room, practicing wrapping and unwrapping bottles of grape juice wrapped in linen with snaps of my fingers (It's really harder than you think, snapping your fingers every time. The gods just couldn't have done it with clapping. Of course they couldn't) when a voice showed up in the back of my head.

_Walt Stone,_ it said, sounding nearly calm and clear and somehow familiar._ Hello again._

I'd heard from Bast that when Carter first found out he was a godling, he started screaming "Help! Help! Somebody get a can opener! There's a god stuck in my head!" Or maybe that was Sadie.

I'd like to say I handled it a lot more professionally. After all, I'd already had nearly a year to get used to the fact that I was Anubis and Anubis was me. But I was still surprised. I leapt up, knocking over my bottles of grape juice and sending purple liquid flying. "What? Who's that?"

_Me._ The voice sounded bored. _Anubis? Remember? The god?_

"Oh," I said, sitting up and wiping grape juice off my face with my sleeve. "You again. Thanks for the whole life-saving thing. Never got a chance to thank you for that."

_Er._ Anubis sounded worried. _You could._

"Save your life?"

_Maybe._

"What happened?" I asked, fingering my amulets nervously. It's this nervous tic thing I'd never realized I did until Sadie pointed it out.

_I may or may not have accidentally read a spell I may or may not have found in Lord Osiris' library that could possibly or possibly not have had to do with raising the dead which I did or did not do. _Anubis sounded sheepish, and according to Sadie, that never happened. Like ever.

Khufu ran into my room, throwing open the door, and dumped his cup of tomato juice on my head. The words registered in my brain.

[Wow, Sadie. I really didn't notice that. Talking in my _mind, _registered in my _brain._ How very funny, Sadie. I mean _punny_. Get it? Never mind.]

"May or may not have accidentally means you did. May or may not have found in Lord Osiris' library means you were snooping around in his private library. Possibly or not possibly means it did have to do with raising the dead. Did or did not means you did raise the dead." The penny dropped.

"You raised the dead."

_Uh huh._

"I'm almost impressed."

I really hadn't meant to tell anybody, because I thought maybe I could handle it, and nobody would know until later, and then I would have saved the world. Except I was wrong and it slipped out in a conversation with Carter in Pinkberry.

Back to the present.

I'd never been house-hunting before, what with living with my mom in Seattle my whole life. Well, _most _of my life. Not counting the whole running-for-my-life and saving-the-world stuff with the Kanes. And I had certainly never been house-hunting in the dark, with a bunch of kindergarteners.

[Oh, right, Carter, some of the initiates are _first graders_. Yeah. Heh. Forgot about that. No, Shelby, I said _I forgot my hat_. I most certainly didn't forget that you were a first grader.]

After today (or rather, to_night_), I will never go again. For one, it was cold. Also, Iskandar was right. We weren't alone. Of course, you aren't ever really alone in a big city like New York, but honestly. We hadn't gone half a block when what looked like a garbage can but in reality was one of those street mutts stirred in its sleep. Cleo screamed, and almost turned the poor creature into dust, but Julius clapped a hand over her mouth, and effectively shut her up.

Then I muttered a phrase in Hound. Or maybe the language is Caninese? Not the point. Sadie later said it was the oddest phrase she'd ever heard. And that it sounded like I was skinning a naked mole rat alive in my mouth.

[Thanks a bunch, Sadie. Really appreciate that.]

I looked the dog in the eye, just in case it hadn't gotten that I was the boss, and barked out a series of short yips and yowls. Well, to most people, even godlings, that's what it sounded like. Hopefully, to the dog, it was 'Where is it safe to spend the night in this city?' and not 'Why did you tape the hens upright in the house of kitties?' My Caninese is not quite as good as it could be, but in my defense, I didn't really have much time to practice, what with the war, and it isn't as if there are that many Caninese–English dictionaries, or even Caninese–Egyptian dictionaries.

Anyway, according to the dog, we could find a place to stay behind an oak tree, or he said that he would like to play with a flea. I'm hoping it was the former, because there really aren't that many trees in the middle of New York, never mind oak trees. I thanked him, and turned to relay the news to the rest of the group.

Sadie smirked. "Wonderful speaking voice, Walt." I ignored her. It's something Carter taught me, and between the two of us, I'm definitely getting better at it.

Carter, ever the organized one, pulled out a map from his back pocket and unfolded it. "Oak tree?" I nodded. "Central Park," he announced. "We're going to the park."

Then Jaz shrieked.

As you know, Jaz isn't really the screaming sort of person. So we all turned to look at what she was pointing at. For a moment, it seemed like the street was alive, that in the dark of night the roads had come to life, rippling along its pathways like asphalt waves. I blinked, and looked again. Not asphalt waves. Garter snakes. Scorpions. Hundreds of them. Coming towards us.

Carter slapped his hand against his forehead. "Not again." I didn't have time to ask him what was wrong, because then the first wave of them hit us.

.o0o.

**Author's Note: Not quite sure I like how that turned out, but I feel like I've fiddled with it long enough, and it's been too long since I updated. So, what did you think? Please review!**


	5. We Almost Go Vegetarian

**Author's Note: Here's another chapter. This one is the longest one yet, I think. Enjoy!**

**By the way, three people reviewed (SerenePanic, Annon (Guest), and OmNomNom (Guest). This one's for you guys! **

**Disclaimer: I don't own the Kane Chronicles. I don't actually really own the plot, either, because my friends helped me come up with it. I'm just doing the writing. I guess I own part of it? Never mind. **

The Rise of the Dead

A Kane Chronicles Fanfiction

Chapter Five: We Almost Go Vegetarian

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In moments we were surrounded. In our surprise, we'd all forgotten the most basic thing magicians were taught. The initiates forgetting I could deal with - the point of teachers is for students to practice their ignoring skills, after all. But Carter, Zia, and I should have remembered. We paid for our mistake of forgetting to stay together in a circle.

The creatures advanced, inch by slithering clattering inch. I stepped back, feeling something crunch under my shoe, suddenly glad I was wearing my beat-up trainers instead of flip-flops. I stepped back again as a scorpion leapt for my leg and clung on, snapping it's mandibles evilly and slicing the bottom half of my jeans to slivers. Cursing, I reached into the Duat for my magic bag, and found... Nothing. I mean, usually I don't find anything on my first try, but it still seems to exist, just not within my reach. Except this time there was completely and utterly nothing. The Duat was gone.

Behind me I recognized the sound of Zia swearing at the top of her lungs in Ancient Egyptian, mindless of the ankle-buyers biters, as she swatted the scorpions with her jacket. Apparently Carter had realized the same thing I had, and was bludgeoning snakes with his shoes. Not very safe. After all, Mr. Walking Wikipedia should have remembered that scorpions are often poisonous. Like always.

I shook the scorpion off my leg, wincing as its pinchers yanked free of my skin with a trail of red. Never mind. That could be dealt with later. I considered shouting 'Ha-di!' for a moment before I realized that could well incinerate the rest of the initiates as well as the snakes and scorpions. Drat. I racked my brain. What had we done last time?

Then it came to me. We had run and found Zia, who saved us. She whirled past me, a blur of grey-brown clothes and a dark purple jacket flickering with fire. "Zia!" I yelled. "Zia!"

She turned, smashing a snake under her heel before it could climb up her leg. "What?"

"You wouldn't happen to have any Ribbons of Hathor, would you?" I ducked as something flew overhead.

She swung around to face me, jumping to avoid my tidy pile of scorpions. "No," she muttered. "I don't. Idiot initiates used them to bind some minor goddess, Wajit, maybe."

"Wajit? The snake lady?"

Zia nodded, spinning to one side to unleash a whip of fire at a scorpion about to take a chunk out of Carter's neck.

I pointed at the hill in the far distance, where a figure was rapidly approaching, it's emerald-green skin flashing in the dim streetlights of Manhattan. "That one?"

Zia swore. "Yes," she said shortly, "that one." She looked seriously worried. "Iskandar was right," she murmured, almost to herself. "They cannot die anymore."

I got the basic idea. "Bad." Zia nodded wordlessly. Then Carter and the other initiates appeared at my shoulder.

"We're going. Now. Walt's found the artifact. We're getting out of here." Zia and I followed, and for the second time in as many hours, we were thrown in and out of a portal.

.o0o.

We tumbled out onto a floor of polished obsidian, scattering sand everywhere. Carter stood and brushed sand off his jeans. Jaz shook her hair out, accidentally spraying Khufu, who growled. Julian spat and mouthed a bad word. Zia rolled her eyes.

I looked around. To our right was a row of grayish cubicles that were either offices or lift stations. I mean _elevators_. Bother you Americans. On my other side was a huge curving stairway maybe ten feet across that spiraled around a giant sculpture-thing of dangling crystals. I'm not really into art, simply because of the fact that any art we come upon is destroyed within the next half hour.

But these were beautiful. It looked like it was raining diamonds. Khufu evidently felt the same, because he leapt up onto the receptionists' desk, spilling several cups of coffee over some important-looking papers. The receptionist screamed and jerked backwards, knocking over her chair. Khufu growled at her. She screamed again.

Four security guards turned in unison at the noise, saw an odd arrangement of sandy children in the corner, and strode toward us.

"Excuse me, uh, ma'am," said the first, a fat bearded one with no hair. It looked like his head had been put on upside-down.

"Ma'am?" asked the second one, who was tall and skinny with a necklace with a hieroglyph on it. The symbol of Set. I exchanged a look with Carter. Not good. Meaning: bad.

"Hello! Excuse us!" shrieked the third and fourth in unison. One was red-faced and baby-faced. The other was old, like Iskandar-old, with suspenders. Really. "Ma'am."

Walt poked me. "They're talking to you."

I sat up. "What?"

"Ma'am?" repeated all four in unison.

I spat sand out of my mouth, which landed on Baby-face Man's boot. Baby-face didn't look happy. "Yeah?" I asked, using the tone I used often with my grandparents when I wasn't in the mood for one of Gran's lectures.

"I'm sorry," said Necklace glaring at Carter. Carter glared back. Good for him.

"Ma'am," added Upside-down Head. He looked down his nose at Walt, who was brushing sand out of his hair. An impressive feat, considering Walt was at least six centimeters taller thatn the guard.

"Ma'am," repeated Suspender Pants, looking bored in the adult way that means they suddenly get the urge to glare at little first graders waving crayons.

Something smashed against the wall, too low to be seen. "You must have," said Baby-face, ignoring the splintering sounds as something rammed the door.

"A ticket," continued Upside-Down Head. A crack appeared in the bottom left hand of the front wall.

"To enter," finished Necklace. "May I-"

"See your tickets?" asked Suspender Pants, cutting Necklace off. He puffed himself up, looking very important. Or so he thought. Personally, he looked like a penguin somebody had given a nightstick.

Carter and I exchanged a Look. Then we ran., dragging the initiates behind us. We took the stairs two at a time, Zia and I carrying the ankle-biters that were too midget-y to move fast. The four security guards pulled off their uniforms, pants and all, emerging as four bronze-skinned men in white skirt-like loincloths. A coffin-type thing appeared between their upraised hands.

They took off at a jog, taking twelve steps at a time, gaining fast. I had a moment of inspiration, and yelled, "Swing!" at the giant chandelier-curtain of crystal diamond things. It swung, then collapsed on top of the Men in Skirts. Crystals flew everywhere. One ricocheted off the receptionists' desk where two women in miniskirts were hiding behind their chairs and slammed into the door, pinging off and dragging the double doors open behind them.

But no, that wasn't it. It was the bloody snakes and scorpions again, the sheer weight of their numbers shoving the doors open. They scuttled and slithered their way up the stairs behind us, and we kept going up until we ran out of up.

We emerged onto a terrace lined with glass panels. Several people - tourists, probably, on some special nighttime view of New York ("Come watch the beautiful night sky that you totally can't see from your window!") shrieked and dropped their cameras, which fell sixty-seven stories to crunch onto the ground below. Oops. People really should wear the wrist straps. And pay attention to the sign that says: DO NOT LEAN OVER SIDE OF BUILDING.

The scorpion sounds were louder now. Carter whipped around, and dashed for the second exit, going down. We elbowed our way through the souvenir stand and down more stairs into the lobby below. Well, we were supposed to. But Carter took at least one wrong turn somewhere, and we turned the corner into a room full of lights.

The ankle-biters shrieked with joy and ran off to chase the lights. Moments later, they ran back shrieking with fear at the four Egyptian men in loincloths that had appeared at the window.

They slammed into the glass full speed, careening through the room to crash through the door of the control room. Instantly, the neon lights became lasers, and the men fizzled out with little pops.

Several of our more animalistic pursuers arrived on the scene, waving tails and heads menacingly. It might have worked better had they not been incinerated as soon as they stepped in through the door.

I gagged. I might have mentioned this, but it should be repeated. Burnt scorpions smell absolutely horrid. Beside me, Jaz, who has always had a weak stomach, went green in the face. "You know," she gasped. "I think I'm going to go vegetarian after this." I nodded.

On the far side of the room, Zia brandished a thin metal container with vigor. "I have the Seven Ribbons of Hathor, Sadie!"

Walt looked at me. "Have we gone back in time? Because I swear this sounds just like your first recording."

Carter answered for me. "Yeah. It does." He looked at his watch. "According to my watch, the next event, Fruit Bats, should arrive any minute."

As if in answer to his prediction, the sky overhead darkened with thousands of winged shapes.

"That's it," I muttered, stamping my foot like a three-year-old. "We're going to London. America isn't quite working out." And we jumped into another portal.

**Author's Note: What do you think? I have the basic idea laid out, but if anybody has ideas or some god/scenario you want them to be in, please send them to me in a review! Thanks!**


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